From
Press Release – FAA Approves Boeing 787 Certification Plan the good news is:
1. “The plan establishes specific pass/fail criteria, defines the parameters that should be measured, prescribes the test methodology and specifies the test setup and design. FAA engineers will be present for the testing and will be closely involved in all aspects of the process.” AND
2. “The certification plan is the first step in the process to evaluate the 787’s return to flight and requires Boeing to conduct extensive testing and analysis to demonstrate compliance with the applicable safety regulations and special conditions.” All Special Certification Conditions must be met. Put simply that mean batteries must not burn, except possibly once or twice during the lifetime of the entire 787 fleet. If batteries do overheat or burn, any fire must be safely contained within the battery enclosure and any harmful fumes must be vented overboard.
All of this should have been proven much more cautiously first time around. In fact NTSB Airworthiness Report at
http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/2...cket_doc13.pdf shows that certification assumptions and testing were woefully inadequate. Battery system components were tested in isolation, not even connected together! This time the job will be done better because there will be independent scrutiny.
My bigger concern is that NTSB gives us an insight into the inadequacies of Boeing self-certification but we have no idea what other tests were fudged elsewhere on the plane.